Plastic Finance is improving plastic recycling by increasing the productivity of waste pickers, financed with the PLAS Token. The CEO and COO share more details in this interview.
Please introduce yourself, both of you, Mr. EKA & Mr. Agung, CEO & COO of Plastic Finance, and tell us a bit about your backgrounds?
EKA: Thank you for this opportunity, I am Eka Suwandana, CEO of Plastic Finance, I have a background as an entrepreneur, I have a security system integrator company that has run since 2011. But since 2017, I have become a cryptocurrency enthusiast and had been in several blockchain projects in the past where I learned a lot about the business process.
Crypto is a new industry so it is very open for new people to start their careers & bet their luck here. I believe there is no seniority whatsoever here since we all need to learn something new about tech and the use case practically every month.
AGUNG: Hi, I’m Agung Dumadio, I’m the Founder and COO of Plastic finance. Formerly I’m a banker and Independent Financial Advisor in the Capital Market with 15 years of experience.
What is Plastic Finance about?
EKA: Plastic Finance first of all was Agung’s idea. Which we want to create plastic grinds processing plant in KARAWANG WEST JAVA. And we also want to create a plastic bank under a cooperative umbrella, where this saving and loan bank uses DEFI as the processing back end, since it is easier using DEFI to scale up TRUST compare to CEFI. We take a very small profit and of course very small Net Interest Margin, and a transactional fee. DEFI is a kind of the Ferrari of financial engineering where we cut a lot of middlemen.
Then after 2 weeks of running the campaign and airdrop, we were approached by our partners and advisors to recalibrate the business to fit and comply with E.S.G investment theme.
AGUNG: Plastic finance is our idea using blockchain technology to financing real sector business. In this case, plastic recycle waste
How is Plastic Finance good for the environment? What value does it add?
EKA: First of all, Indonesia is the 2nd most polluted nation on earth after CHINA. Statistically speaking we throw like 2 Billion plastic Bottles per minute, and roughly only 9% are recycled. This is a huge problem but also a huge opportunity. If we recycle the plastic waste into regrinds the gross profit margin is between 18-50% depending on materials, it could be grouped either HDPE or PP regrinds. That is the Environment factor of ESG.
So, after some calculation, if we reach the hard cap of 3.8Million USD 1 PLAS equals approximately 6.4Ton recycled plastic/year, that if we according to plan create enough MRFs to process 50 tons/hour in total.
Also, we plan to give 10% of our profit for the Greenify project of planting teak trees that is all about 1PLAS =10Kg/year reduction of CO2.
AGUNG: Yes, because we are buying plastic waste from the scavenger to reduce plastic waste around us. And good for a supply chain by giving them income benefit & also we allocate 5% of our token sale to cooperate with other green projects, through tree planting.
What is the ultimate goal of Plastic Finance?
EKA: Reaching hard cap and creating recycling facility for plastic grind with 50 ton /hour capacity from there on, it will be easier for us to create a new recycle culture, elevate the waste collectors community through saving and loan in our cooperative.
AGUNG: Our ultimate goal is to reduce plastic waste by making plastic recycling business activities and we also want to improve the standard of living of the scavengers through the formation of a scavenger cooperative.
What the difference between Plastic Finance and another traditional plastic Bank like Mountrash or Plasticbank?
AGUNG: Well, I know so many plastic banks came up to circulation recently, but all of them bought the plastic waste directly from households, which in my opinion will erase the jobs of scavengers.
What experience does the team have? What are their backgrounds?
EKA: Most of the team have a background in banking and the local capital market in Indonesia. But our CTO and coder also top tier in their business and have done many blockchain projects.
AGUNG: Team background, consisting of various disciplines and different work experiences. The bigger the team the larger the circle of competence of this team.
What is the significance of the PLAS token?
EKA: We hope it will be the 1st ESG compliant token in the world.
AGUNG: By buying a PLAS token, it means that you are participating in reducing environmental pollution, in this case, plastic waste. 1 PLAS token reduces 10 kg CO2/year and 6.4 tonnes recycled plastic/ year.
Where is the token sale taking place? What is the schedule?
EKA: We haven’t decided yet but we do have talks with many prominent exchangers. The schedule is as late as Q3 2021.
Will PLAS with dividend payment pass HOWEY TEST?
EKA: Yes and No. Yes because our cooperative can distribute back to token holder protégé dividend and cooperative in Indonesia is not controlled by any financial service authority.
And there is another token that distributes regularly their profit too.
However, if the protégé dividend scheme is not allowed, then we can make PLAS a deflationary token where we buyback and burn regularly using our profit.
Is the code audited for Plastic Finance? Please share the details.
AGUNG: Yes it is done by telescr.in. You can see the audit result link on the website.
What do you expect from this bull season?
EKA: I hope there will be a lot more projects in the crypto space that accommodate real business as underlying. I don’t care should it be a security token or not, but I hope the authority could be more adaptive with crypto space.
AGUNG: Our target sale is sold out and the price goes up
Any message for our readers?
EKA: Buy plastic token if you do care about our planet! Visit the website: https://plastic.finance